Momentus says it is “a services company focused on the destination, not a product company focused on hardware”, and that it is “laying the groundwork for the entire in-space transportation industry”.

Investment was led by Prime Movers Lab, and there were also contributions from Y Combinator, the Lerner family, the University of Wyoming Foundation, Quiet Capital, Mountain Nazca, ACE & Company, Liquid 2 Ventures and Drake Management.

With the $8.3m in seed funding Momentus raised last year, this brings the start-up’s total funding to almost $34m.

Development

The start-up is in the process of building two vehicles: Vigoride, which will move satellites within low Earth orbit, and Vigoride Extended, which will move satellites from low Earth orbit to geostationary transfer or geostationary orbit.

This latest investment will be used to speed up the development and testing of both of these products.

Dakin Sloss, founder of Prime Movers Lab, expressed his confidence in the spacetech company: “In the past 18 months, Momentus has rapidly matured its water plasma propulsion system to deliver the world’s safest and most affordable in-space transportation services. They recently launched their first demonstration and are on track to radically reshape the landscape of the space economy.”

This first demonstration was launched on 5 July and is still ongoing. Mikhail Kokorich, founder and CEO of Momentus, declined to comment on that particular demonstration at the Space Tech Summit in Santa Clara on 11 July.

Kokorich said that by 2020, Momentus plans to conduct Vigoride demonstration flights and a “semi-experimental mission” to attract interest and generate its first revenue.

According to TechCrunch, commercial launch services are expected to reach $7bn by 2024, which is increasing demand for start-ups such as Momentus and Akash Systems that offer more than just “basic launch services”.